The iPhone has easily become the best jukebox in the car with your iTunes library, iTunes Radio, streaming services like Beats Music and Spotify, and great apps for keeping up with podcasts. With hands-free features powered by Siri, you can even stay in touch with phone calls and text messages all without ever taking your eyes off the road. If you’re a passenger, the iPad is a great screen for gaming, reading, watching movies, and more.

This holiday season is especially exciting with new features built-in to iOS like CarPlay and Hey Siri, which allows you to activate Siri while your iPhone or iPad is charging completely hands-free, and below are some of the best products to gift the iPhone or iPad-owning driver this year. Read more

Automatic Labs and Ford Motors are announcing today a new partnership to bring the Automatic Link accessory to more people and add more functionality to the platform. Ford Motors and Automatic Labs will work together to develop features to both the Automatic platform and Ford Sync, the automaker’s in-car infotainment system.

By integrating with Ford’s Sync platform, for example, Automatic users will be able to connect the in-car Sync button to the popular If This Then That automatic service. This turns the push-to-talk button into a one push button for a variety of programmable automation tasks in the car. The two companies say more enhancements will roll out soon through the partnership. Read more

The smart driving assistant Automatic is getting even more capable this morning with the roll out of a new dashboard interface made specifically for the web. You will probably recognize the interface (seen above) if you have used the Automatic app, which connects to a Bluetooth accessory in your car to give you data on driving efficiency and more.

The dashboard presents trip history mapped out alongside information including distance, miles-per-gallon, fuel cost, and duration just like the iPhone app. In addition to being able to access data captured by Automatic on the web for the first time, the new dashboard also features filtering and exporting capabilities. Read more

Automatic, the smart driving assistant that connects your car to your iPhone, is updating its accompanying iOS app today with a new design and new features. The new design, Automatic says, is meant to be “lighter, faster and more modern”. The gray header, for example, has been replaced with a white field displaying the current and past driving stats collected by the app.

In addition to the refreshed look and feel, Automatic 2.0 for iPhone brings new features to Automatic Link users. With the update, Automatic will offer fuel level information and warnings on supported cars. While this feature only works on supported cars, in many cases it goes beyond dashboard fuel gauges as Automatic can present an estimate of miles possible to be driven before running out of fuel based on previous driving behaviors. Read more

For the past few months, I’ve been testing the Automatic Link which aims to make you a safer, more efficient driver. But is it enough to really change your driving habits?

With the holiday season quickly approaching and the hardware now widely available and in stock on Amazon (and Prime eligible at that), what better time to discuss my hands-on experience with the smart driving assistant…